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The project has come out of a partnership between Cambridge City Council and Hill Investment Partnership, which aims to help increase the amount of affordable housing within Cambridge.

The target is to provide new houses across the city using mainly council-owned sites, and the City Council has received £70million support from central government to achieve this.

Cambridge City Council’s planning committee is recommended to approve the plans at their meeting next week - so here are some reasons to get excited about it.

Mill Road Depot View of Eagle Foundry Stree

Coming soon - to one of the coolest bits of town

The depot site lies off Mill Road next to the railway line heading north out of the city from the central station. The entrance to the site will be located on Mill Road between Kingston Street and the bridge over the railway.

Mill Road is famed for its independent shops and cafés, like Relevant Records and the Black Cat Café, as well as the multitude of local pubs and restaurants, like the Cambridge Blue, and the Devonshire Arms, that can be found in the area.

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What’s there at the moment?

The site has been used for industrial purposes such as an iron foundry, timber yard, coal depot and, in recent times as the City Council depot which consists of offices, motor repair/servicing (with filling station), waste separation and storage, car wash facility and workshops.

The site currently accommodates several pre-fab and brick built buildings and structures of different sizes and ages. The main buildings on the site are the Coach House range and Women’s Resource Centre.

Near Cambridge City Council Depot, Mill Road (Image: David Johnson)

There's going to be lots of affordable housing

The development will include 184 dwellings – half of which will be “affordable homes”. This came after the city council pledged an extra £5.76 million to the project (which had previously been budgeted at £70 million) to ensure 50 per cent of the houses would be affordable.

All of the affordable homes will be owned and managed by the city council as part of its social housing stock and let to those on the Housing Needs Register.

Protesters called for a commitment to more affordable housing

...and great cycling routes

The new development will sit smack on the planned Chisholm Trail – the segregated bike “superhighway” planned to transform how cycle commuters get around the city.

If the plans come off, cyclists could easily access the central station, as well as the new Cambridge North station.

The amount of green space planned has gone up

The planners responded to fears that too many homes were being squeezed into the site by cutting the initial estimate from 230 to 187.

The amount of open space has also been increased to 28 per cent, higher than the initial suggestion of 20-25 per cent.

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